Level 1 sweep and inspection to the NFPA 211 annual standard - flue, crown, cap, and flashing checked and photographed
Chimney sweep logs do not sweep chimneys. They loosen some creosote - which then falls where a brush and vacuum still have to collect it.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterMeet the Crystal Lake Team Behind Level Two Chimney Crystal Lake
Every chimney in Crystal Lake tells a different story, and the people reading those stories matter as much as the tools they use. Our crew lives in McHenry County, works here, and sweeps here. What pulls us together isn’t a handbook - it’s the habit of showing a homeowner exactly what we found and exactly what it’ll cost before anyone touches a ladder. That’s the Haven Standard, and it’s how we’ve operated since 2009.
Our People
Marcus T. - Lead Technician, NFPA 211 Level 2 Inspector
Marcus has been climbing roofs in McHenry County for fourteen years, and he still notices the things other sweeps miss: hairline cracks in a flue liner that haven’t opened yet, or the way a crown in Ridgefield slopes wrong for our freeze-thaw winters. He’s CSIA-certified and carries the Level 2 inspection credential that lets us document internal chimney conditions with a camera scan on every visit. Off the clock, Marcus rebuilds vintage motorcycles in a garage near Three Oaks Recreation Area and has strong opinions about which gas station coffee in Crystal Lake is actually drinkable. He’ll text you when he’s fifteen minutes out, and he’ll show you the photo of the creosote buildup before he explains what Class II versus Class III means for your burning season.
Dana K. - Senior Installer, Liner & Rebuild Specialist
Dana joined us in 2017 after six years doing commercial HVAC sheet metal, and that background shows in her liner work - she measures flues to the eighth-inch and sources materials from DuraFlex and Olympia Chimney through Haven’s buying network so we’re not marking up retail parts. She’s installed or repaired chimney liners from the historic homes near Crystal Lake Main Beach to new construction in Lakewood. Her specialty is the jobs other companies walk away from: offset flues, collapsed smoke chambers, rebuilds where the original masons are long gone. Dana keeps a battered field notebook from her first year and still references it when she hits a configuration she hasn’t seen before. She’ll tell you upfront when a liner can wait a season and when the gap between terra cotta flue tiles is too wide for safe operation.
Raj P. - Service Coordinator
Raj is the voice you hear when you call (815) 923-3185 at 10 PM on a Sunday because you smelled something odd after the first fire of the season. He schedules every sweep, repair, and rebuild across our Crystal Lake territory, and he’s the one who makes sure your written price, written scope, and written warranty are delivered before Marcus or Dana ever parks in your driveway - Haven Standard Clause 1, no exceptions. Raj grew up in Algonquin and knows which neighborhoods in Crystal Lake have the clay-heavy soil that shifts chimney foundations, which ones built up fast in the 1990s with builder-grade crowns that are failing now, and which streets still have unlined masonry chimneys from the 1960s. He’ll ask about your burning habits - how often, what wood, how you store it - because that shapes what we check and what we quote.
Elena V. - Apprentice Technician
Elena started with us in 2023 after leaving a warehouse management job she never quite fit into. She’s halfway through her CSIA certification hours and already handles standard sweeps and basic cap installs under supervision. What she lacks in years she makes up for in thoroughness - she photographs every stage of a job because she’s still learning what matters, and that habit means our documented photo records under Haven Standard Clause 4 are getting more detailed, not less. Elena lives in Prairie Grove and burns wood herself in a 1984 Heatilator she inherited, so she understands the gap between “the chimney’s probably fine” and actually knowing. She asks the questions homeowners are sometimes embarrassed to ask, then explains the answers without jargon.
One Standard, Every Job
The Haven Standard wasn’t designed in a boardroom. It accumulated - clause by clause - from what went wrong on jobs and what we wished we’d done differently. Clause 1: have it in writing before work starts. Clause 4: photograph everything, archive it, show the homeowner. The 365-Day Done Right Promise came later, after we realized that standing behind a sweep or a liner install for a full year separated us from the companies who disappear after the check clears.
Across the Haven network, every independently owned and operated location uses the same material suppliers - DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, Copperfield - bought through collective purchasing that keeps customer prices honest. But the crew in Crystal Lake is ours. We know which permits McHenry County requires for a chimney rebuild, how the wind hits roofs off the lake in January, and that a “quick sweep” in a home near Veteran Acres Park can turn into a liner inspection when the camera shows spalling flue tiles we didn’t expect.
We’ve completed more than 38,000 chimney inspections and cleanings since 2009. Every one had a written price before work started and a documented record when it was done. That’s not a marketing line - it’s the practice that became the standard.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Crystal Lake, serving Crystal Lake since 2009.